In 2011, we have Republicans demanding 100% of what they want or they’ll crash the economy on purpose, and Dems have been reduced to asking GOP senators to agree that the wealthy should give up something when dealing with the debt Republicans built up in the first place.

* Which may explain why Obama today used some of his strongest language yet on the debt ceiling, excoriating Republicans for using it “as a gun against the heads of the American people” to extract tax breaks for Big Oil and — he said it again! — corporate jet owners.

If he stares down the GOP and comes up with a deal that makes his base happy, Obama will be showing that he remembers two of the first rules of politics: Dance with the one who brought you — and don’t go to war without your army.

No deal without the rich and big corporations sharing in the sacrifice. No deal that would harm the essential programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. No deal that takes more out of the programs for middle income and poor Americans than it takes from tax breaks, loopholes and havens for the rich and the big corporations, and no deal that undermines the economic recovery.

But as Joan McCarter notes, any plan that calls for roughly equivalent concessions on both sides is by definition doomed.

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